I'm Your National Anthem
by carmen-delrey
Summary: RPR Ian Somerhalder / OC Heidi Lucas
1. Chapter One

This is my first ever attempt at writing an Ian Somerhalder fic. I've never found a story that didn't pair he and Nina together automatically, and this story is a little different... it illustrates a fictional story between Ian and my OC Heidi before Nina was _ever_ around. And what would've happened if she ever came back around.

Heidi Wyland Lucas - 24 years old at the start of the story. An actress.

* * *

**November 2008.**

I walked up the marble staircase two steps at a time, past the many people hurrying down to the ballroom. The anger that just flared so unexpectedly still blazed inside me, and the vision of Ian's shocked face afforded me a deep sense of satisfaction. Serves him right, I thought, why he can't give it a rest… grumpy all the time… it was enough to drive me up the wall.

I passed the large girl whom had helped us check into our room a few days prior; she waved fiercely at me, but I brushed by quickly. My feet were aching in my heels.

"Are you alright, Miss Lucas?" she asked, but I merely walked on.

I spent the rest of the hour sitting alone on the balcony of the hotel suite, puffing cigarettes. Consequently, I was the one to answer the door when Ian's assistant came knocking.

Kaylah was one of my least favorite people, which was due mainly to her habit of prying into Ian and I's relationship. A thin girl, heavily made-up in eyeliner and lipstick, she always reminded me of some kind of bird, her nose hugely magnified like a beak. She came into the room without a word, her hands full of copies of books Ian had brought to read while here in London. The light cast by the lamps and the low-burning, sickly-scented candle I had lit still had the room so dim it was like she had passed me as if I were one of the many shadows being cast on the walls. I sighed as she sat at the desk across the room, immediately typing away at her laptop. I took my seat back on the balcony.

Ian emerged through the glass door a few minutes later, looked around carefully at the London view, then made directly for the wrought-iron seat next to me.

"Have we stopped arguing?" he asked, sitting down.

"Sure," I mumbled.

"You need to stop taking your temper out on me," said Ian.

"Woah, Ian, I'm not –"

"I'm just making an observation," he said, talking over me. "It's not my fault you're stressed out, babe."

"I never said it –"

"Excuse me," called Kaylah in her usual abrasive tone, and I broke off, again feeling both annoyed and slightly ashamed of myself. "Ian, I've been trying to follow up with the guy from the CW but every person I get in touch with says he's on vacation until after the New Year, so…"

Her voice trailed away, and I was left with no doubt that Kaylah considered a conversation between Ian and me as significant as the dirt on the bottom of her knock-off boot.

"That's alright," Ian called back to her blankly.

The one good thing to be said for bringing Kaylah and my assistant-slash-hairdresser Mackenzie to London was that Ian and I were only half as stressed as we usually were while at home. Kaylah and Mackenzie were around to cradle our work lives so that we could try - even if only barely - to relax together. But our alone time had been limited all week thanks to the added company.

Ian and I looked at each other glumly.

I was not going to keep bickering with him here. I knew perfectly well where our snippy attitudes towards one another were coming from, and I didn't need Kaylah or London or the stupid charity event downstairs to have me realize it.

"Well, I wished we would have a good night tonight," said Ian, screwing up his face and peering past the railing into view. "What d'you want to do now?"

"Lay in that big bed and eat those marshmallows we got this morning," I said, turning my body in my chair so I was facing directly toward him. My knees hit his.

I was not pleased, frankly, when Ian had insisted we bring our assistants on our short getaway across the Atlantic. It didn't feel like a romantic trip between lovers, and I think I had done a crummy job of hiding that from him the last few days. And on top of that, our dumb arguments were becoming very dull and unnecessary.

Finally, Kaylah announced her departure downstairs to she and Mackenzie's shared room, and Ian and I were left alone. He immediately grumbled loudly once the door slammed shut behind her.

"D'you realize how much shit I've got to deal with when we get home? I feel like I can't… even relax…" Ian sighed, his head dropping. I put my hand on his knee.

"It'll be okay, babe," I whispered back to him.

We exchanged another gloomy look; many of our nights had ended with discussions of stress and worries about anything and everything… work, family, our relationship. I moved my hand up his leg and pressed my face to his shoulder. Ian's leg tensed, and he leaned over me until his lips were pressed against my bare shoulder. Chills ran down my back from his warm mouth, and it was only then did I remember how freezing cold the November air was.

I instantly felt safety, the way I always did when I was close to him.

"Well I know what I want to do," mumbled Ian, lifting his face to mine and clasping both his hands neatly on my waist. "Let's go in."

We kissed; the tension in my body vanished and was replaced with yearning.

For the first couple of minutes back inside, the room was only full of the sound of our colliding lips and clothes hitting the carpeted floor. When we made it on top of the bed Ian asked, "Is the door even locked?"

I shrugged, too focused on his nearly-naked body leaning over me.

"I don't think it is," he said, and he jumped from the bed to walk to the door. I stared him down.

"Hurry up," I hummed.

I heard the click of the lock and Ian came back to the bed where I lay, settling himself over me, observing me closely with those piercing blue eyes as I unhooked the front of my bra. I turned to push back the heavy covers of the hotel bed.

It was desperately passionate, quite as amazing as if it were the first time we had ever touched. I felt my control sliding away from me; I had soon breathed the same demand for Ian to keep going harder half a dozen times without taking in a full breath. Several minutes passed filled with ever-louder moans between the both of us. I got on top of him, and Ian pulled me into him and kissed me intently, gripping my hair. He stared into my face as I swayed on top of him. I kissed down his jaw and neck, sucking hard on his skin when Ian's body tensed underneath mine. He shut his eyes for a moment while he caught his breath, then he wrapped his arms firmly around me. I rest my head on his chest.

I could not remember Ian ever resisting the temptation to have me at any time he could… and I had always liked it like that.

I lifted my head and looked at him amorously, and he sighed again to indicate he was obviously satisfied, then lifted a warm hand to push a long strand of hair out of my face.

"I love you," he said, and I smiled.

"I love you too."


	2. Chapter Two (revised)

**December 2008.**

And on it went. Again and again came the stressful, glooming days. And, again and again, the cutting words and arguments healed, only reappearing the next time we put our emotions and stress in the forefront.

Darkness fell outside Ian's bedroom window. I did not ask when he was coming to bed. I didn't even check the clock. I knew it was one of "those days" and I was not going to show any unnecessary irritability, not even if I had to lay there all night alone in his bed.

After it seemed I had been sleeping for hours, Ian sauntered into the bedroom. He let out a tired sigh as he shut the door behind him.

I sat up. My head was pounding painfully. When I looked up at Ian I saw that his eyes were red and blood-shot from exhaustion.

"I'm tired," he mumbled. He pulled off his white t-shirt and flung it lazily onto the floor

I extended my hand. He took it in his own and sat down next to me. He kissed the back of my wrist.

"I don't seem to have made much of an impression yet," he said, frowning, and I immediately knew what it was he was referring to. His eyes were blank. "You can go back to sleep. I'm just… in a mood…"

I nodded and laid back down without a word. It had to have been past 3 AM. Ian got up and walked slowly to the bathroom. Only when the door was closed did I shut my eyes again.

I was not surprised at his disheveled persona. Ian had, in his words, bombed an audition for a Warner Brothers pilot for some newly written vampire show. He refused to go into detail with me about it. Maybe because I had been in his shoes so many times is why I willingly backed off from the subject – but part of me also felt guilty for doing so.

It was another bad day when I woke. Mackenzie and I were bombarded with pre-production assignments for The Book of Eli, and at my physical training session all I could think about was Ian and his auditions. I had to give up on lunch to take business calls and, meanwhile, Ian was off probably pacing in the bathroom of a Warner Brothers studio, mumbling lines to himself. To cap it all, Kaylah tracked me down around dinner time and, learning that I would not be able to attend a dinner-meeting with Ian and a few producers he was trying to woo on Friday, told me she was not at all impressed by my attitude and that she expected a girlfriend who wished to keep her other-half to put her relationship before her other commitments.

"I'm flying to New York that day!" I yelled at her over the phone while single-handedly maneuvering my Lincoln Navigator through the mid-day Los Angeles traffic. "Do you think I'd rather be stuck on an airplane or supporting my boyfriend at home? Why is it any of your business anyway, Kaylah?" I snapped, finally releasing the built-up rage I'd been holding against her. "Ian and I can take care of relationship without any help."

I hung up the phone before I had the change to threaten her with losing her job. It was immature of her to throw herself into our personal business like that, yet I did feel guilty for not being able to accompany Ian to this dinner in two days. The casting process for the show he was going for was nearing an end… and was supposedly down to him and one more guy. If Ian didn't get the part he'd be devastated, I knew. It made my heart ache just thinking about it. I had never seen him stress out so much over a casting.

* * *

The Gucci skirt I was wearing blew tightly against my legs. It was sunny in New York, but so nail-bitingly cold, for it was the middle of winter. Worse, the photo-shoot I was doing for Muse magazine was calling for spring-time edginess, and the outfits I was being adorned in were hardly fit for the twenty-two degree chill.

"This is the last set, Heidi, I promise," the photographer, Jette called in his thick Australian accent.

I guess my un-comfort had been more realizable than I'd thought.

"I'm all yours," I said as pleasantly as I could, pushing a stray piece of my bangs into the messy up-do I'd been styled with a few hours prior. "It's all in a day's work."

I leaned against the concrete wall of the abandoned building we were shooting outside of, ignoring the chills running up and down my arms and bare legs (and the fact that I could barely feel my own face). With my eyes skyward, I breathed in a gust of air and once again took on the persona of the 60's vixen I'd morphed into for the day, doing what I did best and playing for the camera.

There was a deviance about being an actress that was purely obvious; people knew my name, they recognized me, they held me to a certain divine standard. It created a heavy pressure to be seen as a loose form of perfect. It was a pity, really… sometimes I lost the feeling of who I really was.

When I was a little girl, I always dreamed that in my mid-twenties I would be married with a baby, living in the suburbs of Chicago and working in my own vintage boutique. Sleep would be routine, and stress would come only in small doses. I had fantasized of fame and fortune but never saw it as a graspable reality. Yet here I was… twenty-four years old and on the cover of magazines and starring in blockbuster films. I had a gorgeous boyfriend who adored me as much as I adored him, and because of that he knew me not as Heidi Lucas the actress… he knew the real me, the sometimes-insecure, goofy girl who had the blessed gift of charm and the talent and passion for character-work, just as he did. Ian understood me more than anyone else in the world… and I was grateful.

_HEIDI, OR NOTHING_

_Heidi Lucas, 24, of Chicago, Illinois, has cruised into the Hollywood spotlight and made a name for herself much larger than the average girl of her fresh age. Lucas found herself forced onto the scene with a break-out starring role in 2006's The Devil Wears Prada alongside Meryl Streep, and that same year was featured in the drama Bobby with a slew of Hollywood's top A-List actors…_

_…She refuses to speak in detail about her personal life, but the girlfriend of Lost hottie Ian Somerhalder blushes in embarrassment when asked if wedding bells could be in the couple's near future._

_"Oh, gosh… Ian is my best friend and we're really trying to focus on each other right now, but… no, no, we're not engaged or anything. Not now. Just enjoying each other."_


End file.
